The document provides 7 steps for marketers to develop an agile marketing team. It begins with introducing agile principles and how they can help marketing teams adapt quickly to changing customer needs. It then provides 7 tips for getting started with agile, including implementing daily standups, using a task board to track work, writing user stories, embracing simplicity, holding retrospectives, and developing an agile mindset. The overall goal is for marketing teams to become more customer-centric and responsive organizations.

1. 7 STEPS TO DEVELOPING
AN AGILE MARKETING TEAM
A starter guide for marketers who want to increase
their team’s productivity, responsiveness, and speed
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We live in a digital age where communication is fast,
and innovation even faster. Companies operate with no
preconceptions or rigidity about how they're going to operate.
They're able to adapt to market trends because they maintain
a steady focus on customer engagement and feedback. Their
responsiveness lets them ensure satisfaction and deliver value
at a time when customers have more options than ever before.
This high-velocity process is the essence of Agile. It has the
power to transform your marketing team into the ultimate
customer-centricorganization,abletopivotquicklytocapitalize
on customer needs and market trends.
This ebook is a guide to transforming your marketing team
into an Agile machine.
Intro
Table of Contents
I. Adapt or Die: The Constantly Changing Landscape
II. Why Marketers Should Care About Agile
III. Key Agile Principles
IV. Manage Change, Avoid Culture Shock
V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started
VI. Conclusion: Embracing Agile For Ultimate
Customer Centricity
Image credits: Original photo by Bo Nash. Some rights reserved.

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I. Adapt or Die: The Constantly
Changing Landscape
Companies that can’t adapt to the breakneck pace of modern business
will be quickly left behind, choking on the gritty dust of their competitors.
Think about the recent shift in the digital media space: with the explosion
of streaming media, companies like Netflix, Hulu, Apple, and Spotify
have transformed the way we consume media, while companies like
Blockbuster, HMV, and Tower Records weren’t able to pivot quickly
enough, leading to their demise.
I. Adapt or Die: The Constantly Changing Landscape

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Next Generation Marketing
Just like the digital media industry, the marketing discipline is operating in a similar
state of flux. Gone are the days of playbooks, requirements documents, and annual
marketing plans you could stick to. Instead, the rules change every day as marketers
deal with ever-shifting market trends and fickle customer tastes. They are forced
to navigate niche channels, differentiate between signal and noise, and choose
efficient tools from a growing array of choices.
Asaresult,marketingorganizationsstruggletomovefastenoughtorespondtocustomer
feedback and their changing needs. And if a marketing group isn’t equipped to handle
this load? It dies (and is replaced).
Which is how we come to Agile.
I. Adapt or Die: The Constantly Changing Landscape

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II. Why Marketers Should
Care About Agile
Agile is a tried-and-true method for creating a truly
collaborative environment, enabling teams to perform
efficiently, manage heavy workloads, and instantly respond
to changing customer needs.
The Agile method for project management was birthed by
software development teams that needed to streamline
processes and deliver products more efficiently — and ensure
what they delivered was what the customer really wanted.
II. Why Marketers Should Care About Agile
And although it started with software developers, Agile has
grown into an approach that cuts across industry boundaries.
Are you ready to join the Agile marketing revolution?
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II. Why Marketers Should Care About Agile
How Agile Can Take Marketing to The Next Level
What Agile offers marketing organizations is fourfold — all
leading to projects with better business value and faster time
to market:
1. Agile promotes adaptive planning, because it understands
that projects are never set in stone. Parameters change.
Customer needs shift. Project plans need a way to take this
into consideration without dissolving into chaos.
2. Agile takes an iterative approach to work, improving the
product incrementally in short, successive work cycles. This
means that every few weeks, a new deliverable, or portion
of a deliverable, is produced. The improvement process
is ongoing.
3. Agile emphasizes transparency and communication.
Open, consistent communication between project teams and
customers means you know exactly what your customers
want from you. There’s no risk of accidentally spending time,
effort, and resources creating something that misses the
mark, or having a client review the finished product only to ask for
major changes. And transparency within the team means no
accidental duplicate work and greater collaboration.
4. Agile allows for rapid and flexible response to change.
Becauseyou’realwaysintouchwithyourcustomers,youknow
when their needs change. And because you’re in constant
communication with your team, you know what everyone is
working on and can immediately adjust everyone’s efforts
to meet those changing needs.

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III. Key Agile Principles
Reflect.
After a project ends, reflect on what
worked and what didn’t, and apply
lessons learned to your next project.
Not only will the quality of your work
increase, you’ll reap greater rewards
for your efforts and the way your team
works as a unit will improve. Soon, you’ll
have a high-performing marketing team.
Focus.
Break work into smaller tasks, and
focus on one task at a time. Stop being
overwhelmed by the big picture. Small
tasks also make it easier to be flexible, in
case you need to shift gears.
Test.
Test constantly. Trust the data you generate
over unsubstantiated opinions. This is
where customer feedback is so critical.
If you’re not listening to your customer,
how do you know if you’re creating
something of value?
Adapt.
Respond to change instead of rigidly
sticking to the plan. When data leads you
in a new direction, don’t resist. By staying
agileandkeepingcommunicationsopen,
you can pivot on a dime.
There are several key principles that give Agile its unique flavor.
When done correctly, these principles lead to successful Agile projects:
Interact.
Schedule frequent — but brief — team
updates so the whole group knows
what’s happening. These updates could
be daily standup meetings where each
member shares what they’re working on
and where they need help. Added bonus:
doing standups can eliminate the need
for long, drawn-out status meetings.
III. Key Agile Principles

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IV. Manage Change,
Avoid Culture Shock
With all the benefits that Agile brings to marketing teams,
how does one actually go about implementing an Agile
marketing process?
Making the transition is not easy. You’re not only changing the
culture of your marketing team, but also the cross-functional
teams that you work with. It will take time and you will
encounter resistance — but you can overcome it.
IV. Manage Change, Avoid Culture Shock
Give it Time
According to researchers, getting a new habit to stick requires
an average of 66 days, or roughly 2 months. And if the new
behavior is particularly complex, it may take up to 8 months.
So if you’re implementing Agile and don’t see immediate
results, resist the urge to give up after 30 days. Stick with it for
at least two months.
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Combat Resistance
People will resist Agile for many reasons. Often from fear of
the unknown – why change when the old way has worked
for years? Or perhaps, a fear of incompetency – will this new
process require new skills that I don’t have? There may simply
be doubts that the end results will be worth the effort.
Another source of resistance may come from a lack of
communication. If you, as the advocate, don’t explain why Agile
needs to be introduced at all, and if your team members aren’t
consulted for their opinions, brick walls will go up and the new
process will be brought to a standstill.
To counter this, you must communicate your reasons for
implementing Agile and include your marketing team in the
discussion before switching over. Be patient, and encourage
your team along the way by celebrating small wins – like
sharing positive customer feedback. It takes some time, but
it’ll be worth it.
IV. Manage Change, Avoid Culture Shock
Baby Steps
One approach is to introduce Agile in pieces. Incremental
changes aren’t as much of a shock to the system, and your
team can ease into a new way of working without jumping
straight into the deep end, sink or swim.
In the next section, we’ll introduce 7 small steps to help you
successfully introduce Agile to your team. As you take these
initial steps, document your victories so you have concrete
proof that the process delivers results.
Image credits: Original photo by Franziska. Some rights reserved.

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V. 7 Simple Tips
to Get Started
When starting out, focus on the core elements of Agile that can
help you experience immediate results. Here are a few simple
tips you can use right away without much of a learning curve:
Tip #1: Implement Daily Standups
One way Agile teams communicate is through daily standup
meetings, where team members take a minute or two to
share what they’re working on and any roadblocks they’re
V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started
experiencing. If the same roadblocks keep popping up,
take it upon yourself as a manager to help remove those
roadblocks.
If you have a distributed team where you can’t have
physical standups, try a quick video chat using Google
Hangouts or Skype.
Image credits: Original photo by ArtBrom. Some rights reserved.

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V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started
Tip #2: Start Using a Task Board
One of the biggest challenges to running multiple projects
is tracking all the moving parts and priorities, and keeping
everyone on the same page. An easy way to manage all of the
team’s work is with a task board (also called a Scrum board).
All you need are some sticky notes and a white board. Draw a
fewlines,orusemaskingtapetobreakyourboardintosections,
with four columns next to each team member’s name:
• Backlog: tasks that you have on your plate but haven’t
gotten around to starting yet.
• In Progress: tasks that you’re working on right now.
• With Someone Else: tasks that you’re waiting for someone
else to take action on, whether you’re waiting for approval
or a team member needs to contribute some work before
passing it back to you.
• Done: your completed tasks.
Assign different colored sticky notes to each team member and
start posting the notes on your board, ordering them based on
priority. Each sticky note represents a task, so it’s easy to see
at a glance who’s working on what and which team members
are in danger of being overloaded.
A good rule of thumb: don’t juggle too many tasks at
once in the “In Progress” section. Each person should
pick 3-5 tasks for the week and focus on those. Once tasks
are completed and moved into the “Done” column, you can
always move a task from your Backlog into the “In Progress”
section and get a head start.
Tip: If there are any important details, questions or issues for
a particular task, you can simply write it on the sticky note as
a reminder to discuss them with your team during your next
standup. It’s a great way to encourage transparency across
the team.
Image credits: Original photo by Nadja Schnetzler. Some rights reserved.

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V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started
Tip #3: Use Stories To Prioritize Tasks
One of the core components of Agile is the user story. User
stories are short, simple descriptions of a task or project told
from the perspective of the end user. They typically follow this
simple template:
As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>.
User stories provide a larger context to help teams
determine what approach or solution will deliver the most
value to the customer. From a marketing perspective, it’s a
great exercise to gain a better understanding of your target
personas and how your work can benefit them. User stories are
also helpful in prioritizing projects in terms of business value.
Here’s an example of a marketing user story:
“As a content marketing executive, I want an engaging blog
design that promotes our trial software so we can meet our
trial and revenue goals for this quarter.”
Developing user stories for each of your key personas helps
you be highly targeted in your messaging and campaigns. And
by focusing on your target persona’s end goal, you’re better
able to provide valuable content and solutions that draw
customers to you.
A good practice is to create a new user story for each major
project. Have everyone on the team contribute to answer
these questions: Who are you targeting with this campaign,
and what do they want? What’s the larger problem they want to
solve? Having your team work together to create user stories is
a great way to foster collaboration. Plus, the process will help
make sure you’re getting the maximum business value out of
your team’s efforts.
Image credits: Original photo by Jacopo Romei. Some rights reserved.

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V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started
Tip #5: Don’t Forget the Human Element
Many marketers who try to implement Agile focus on the
mechanics. While certain elements of the Agile process may
be set, like the structure and purpose of standups, there is
an art to effectively managing an Agile marketing team. The
importance of human interaction should never be overlooked,
ranging from how you engage with customers and solicit
feedback to how you communicate with team members. It’s
imperative to building a high performing Agile team.
When managing an Agile marketing team, you’re going to have
to pay attention to both the structure of your processes as
well as how your team members work and communicate with
each other. Mastering both is the key to repeatable success.
Tip #4: Embrace Simplicity
It’seasytoletanexcitingnewideagrowintoamonstercampaign
when you start considering all the potential audiences and
approaches, especially if your team’s in the middle of a killer
brainstorming session. But don’t get carried away.
Agile is about creating the simplest possible solution that
will yield the results your customers care about. Resist
the temptation to throw in extra bells and whistles or launch
a worldwide media blitz because you think it will attract
more attention. Ask your customers (internal or external)
what they want. Although the idea behind your campaign
may be complex, the solution you present should appear
simple to the end users.
Image credits: Original photo by Martin Pettitt (left) and Darryl Moran (right). Some rights reserved.

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Tip #6: Hold Retrospectives
After you complete a task or project, take some time to reflect
and discuss what worked and what didn’t. Ask questions to try
and understand why some things were successful and others
weren’t. In this way, you’re continually learning and adjusting
to make the next project run smoother and yield better results.
Here’s a simple blueprint you can use during your next
retrospective:
• What did we do well?
• What could we have done better?
• How can we improve the process for next time?
Because retrospectives are democratic, they’re very
empowering for your team. They identify the problems, work
together to find the solutions, and then go out and take
ownership over the process.
V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started Image credits: Original photo by Rob Harris. Some rights reserved.

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Tip #7: Develop an Agile Mindset
Agile isn’t a process, it’s a mindset. Following the Agile process
is not the same as being agile, and the distinction is often the
difference between success and project failure. There are a few
common tendencies you’ll need to watch out for, but the
#1 perspective you need to change is how you react to setbacks.
On an individual level, you need to encourage your team-
mates to share any problems or issues holding them back.
People are naturally reluctant to admit they’re having trouble,
so show them they won’t be penalized for asking for help or
not knowing the best course of action. If the team doesn’t know
what members are struggling with, problems escalate until it’s
too late to fix them.
On a higher level, you need to rethink your perception of
failure. Agile recognizes failure as an opportunity to strengthen
your team and your end product. It’s not something that
should be dreaded or swept under the rug. If your team
is truly pushing itself to perform at the next level, failure
is simply part of the process — and can be an incredibly
valuable learning opportunity.
V. 7 Simple Tips to Get Started

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Agile is still new to many marketers, but if you can embrace
the Agile approach and use the steps we’ve detailed here, your
team will be well on its way to becoming a customer-centric
organization—abletoquicklydelivercampaignsthatcustomers
want and adapt to constantly-changing requirements.
VI. Conclusion: Embracing Agile For Ultimate
Customer Centricity
The bonus is that the process will result in enhanced team
collaboration, improved personal and group productivity, and
business objectives that center around what really matters:
the customer.
Good luck and stay Agile!
VI. Conclusion: Embracing Agile For Ultimate Customer Centricity

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